Jorge: 0:00

My sensory apparatus is attuned to the affordances of the vehicle and its environment and the speed of the vehicle and its environment and all this. In some ways, I stop being embodied as a human being and become embodied as an automobile.

Narrator: 0:23

You're listening to Traction Heroes, digging in to get results with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.

Jorge: 0:33

Hey, Harry, it's good to see you.

Harry: 0:36

It's good to see you, Jorge. Always a pleasure I have to say.

Jorge: 0:39

It's a pleasure indeed. I always welcome these conversations. Last time we spoke, we said that it served as a way to shift levels right from the mundane everyday work to thinking... in some cases, thinking about how we're thinking, which so many of these conversations tend to be about.

Harry: 1:01

Yeah, I can't wait to, to hear what you might have brought today.

Jorge: 1:07

I think I would disappoint you and our listeners if there was no reading that we were bringing to the table. Let me jump straight into it because this is a longer one than usual, but, but I think it's worth bringing up.

Harry: 1:24

Fabulous. Go for it, man.

Jorge: 1:27

"Reflect on the state of mind of a player who is said to be hot or playing in the zone. Is he thinking about how he should hit each shot? Is he thinking at all? Listen to the phrases commonly used to describe a player at his best. He's out of his mind. He's playing over his head. He's unconscious. He doesn't know what he's doing. The common factor in each of these descriptions is that some part of the mind is not so active. Athletes in most sports use similar phrases, and the best of them know that their peak performance never comes when they're thinking about it."Clearly to play unconsciously does not mean to play without consciousness. That would be quite difficult. In fact, someone playing out of his mind is more aware of the ball, the court, and when necessary, his opponent. But he is not aware of giving himself a lot of instructions, thinking about how to hit the ball, how to correct past mistakes, or how to repeat what he just did. He is conscious but not thinking, not over trying." I think I'll stop there.

Harry: 2:47

Wow, that's so cool and so true. While I am far from athletic, even as simple as riding a motorcycle, I know that at some point, at the highest speeds, around the tightest turns, that simply being aware of everything and letting my knowledge, my internal intrinsic knowledge of how to ride, guide what's happening is the only way to stay alive. I'm super curious. I don't believe I've read the book that was in, but immediately it reminded me of Owen Wilson's new Apple TV show Stick.

Jorge: 3:35

Oh, I have not seen that.

Harry: 3:37

I'm not a giant golf fan, but it's actually a great show about golf. What is the title of the book?

Jorge: 3:46

This is a classic book and and I think it's become a classic for good reasons. It's called The Inner Game of Tennis, the Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance, and it's by Timothy Gallwey.

Harry: 4:03

I have never read that book. And of course, I've heard about it. And on the heels of something we discussed, I think a few weeks ago, I think we were talking about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance at some point. And that book was written as essentially a motorcyclist response to Zen in the Art of Archery, which is on a very similar topic. What led you to read this book? What, prompted you to pick it up?

Jorge: 4:41

So, the first thing I'll say is I am not a tennis player. I have played tennis in my life, but casually, right? Not competitively or anything like that. This book, I've seen it recommended. Yes, it's a guide for improving your tennis game, but it's one of those books that, while written originally for a specific domain, it has taken a hold of reader's imaginations well beyond that domain. And the way that I would summarize its appeal is it makes a very clear and convincing argument for training yourself to enter into mental states in which you are going to be performing at your best. And I, there's this concept of flow, I can never pronounce the... Csíkszentmihályi, I think is the name of the...

Harry: 5:45

I've heard it described as chick sent me high.

Jorge: 5:49

I have no idea. But the way that I read what Gallwey is saying is you play better tennis if you can get into a state of flow. He doesn't use phrase, right? But you can play better tennis if you get into a state of flow. But here's the tricky thing: you can't will yourself to get into a state of flow.

Harry: 6:15

Right.

Jorge: 6:16

And the more you think about it, the more you try, the worse you're gonna do at it. That's, to me, what is so tricky about this. And, we have these vernacular phrases, like you're overthinking it, you're trying too hard. And I have found that in my own life, it's one of my occupational hazards, overthinking things. I become paralyzed. There's this another vernacular phrase, right? Analysis paralysis.

Harry: 6:51

Mm.

Jorge: 6:52

And out previous conversation before this one, we talked about OODA loops and tightening OODA loops and I think that this is related to that. This idea that if you overthink whatever it is that you're doing, whether it's playing tennis or I would imagine, flying a jet fighter, if you're thinking too hard, you're not going to be performing at your best. And this book, the whole gist is how to teach tennis players to break out of the thinking about how to play better tennis so that they can actually play better tennis.

Harry: 7:37

It reminded me of a couple of days ago I watched a interview with Andrej Karpathy, the computer scientist, AI guy. He used to work for Elon. It was a really interesting interview. He was talking about his workflow. And I've gotten keenly interested in how people go through their days and how they prioritize their time and energy, and then what specifically do they do to produce good work. And he was talking about the fact that he only gets four or five hours and no surprise, we hear about this a lot of really productive work, but that the process that he engages in is about loading the problem into his mental RAM. And he gets into that state of flow by having fully loaded the problem into his mind so that he can then process it both consciously and unconsciously. I don't know why, what you were saying reminded me of that, because of course he's not explicitly talking about the flow state and how flow is typically a result of having a set of skills or capabilities and just exceeding them a little bit with the challenge that you're facing, which is what drags you kicking and screaming into a flow state apparently, according to, the book Flow. But there was something I found very compelling about thinking about having to like install a problem space or a problem into your mind entirely before you can operate on it in the most powerful way. So I don't know, do they speak to any of that in the book, or how do they talk about getting into that state?

Jorge: 9:46

They would not have used that in analogy in this book because it was written in the early 1970s, I wanna say. So it was before personal computers were widespread or whatever. I'm looking here through my notes. I have a quote here."Can one learn to play out of his mind on purpose? How can you be consciously unconscious? It sounds like a contradiction in terms, yet this state can be achieved. Perhaps a better way to describe a player who is unconscious is by saying that his mind is so concentrated, so focused, that it is still. It becomes one with what the body is doing and the unconscious or automatic functions are working without interference from thoughts."

Harry: 10:39

Wow, that is really well put. And that is exactly the experience that I was referring to earlier in our conversation today about my experience on a motorcycle, which is there is like a unified state where there's no thinking ahead of the body. The body and the mind are in alignment with the data that's coming in. And back to OODA loops, the observation, orientation, decisions, and actions, like all of that is happening and there doesn't appear to be any intentional thinking involved.

Jorge: 11:16

This is an experience that I think most people who have driven for a long time have probably experienced, but it just happened to me yesterday because I had a pretty long drive for about three hours. And there is a moment when you're driving, if you have been driving for a long time, that you get behind the wheel and you become one with a car. It's It's almost like my nervous system extends to the boundaries of the car. It's like, if the car hits bumps or something, I feel it. And my My sensory apparatus is attuned to the affordances of the vehicle and its environment and the speed of the vehicle and its environment and all this. In some ways, I stop being embodied as a human being and become embodied as an automobile. It's really weird, right?

Harry: 12:18

I totally know what you're talking about, and I've had that experience. What I'm trying to understand, and I'm struggling a little bit, is I'm trying to understand how to apply this more directly to my experiences as a leader or a manager or a participant on a team.

Jorge: 12:42

A few conversations ago, you and I had a conversation about being authentic and authentically present. And one idea that comes to mind now in retrospect by putting it against the light of this idea of the, the inner game that Gallwey talks about is that sometimes when we are interacting with other people, we have this internal monologue playing out of all the things that you need to keep in check. It's like,"I can say this. I can't say this. I should say this. I have this agenda." I am pre articulating the response that I'm going to say next or I'm writing a list of questions that I want to ask this interview subject or what have you. And an experience of interacting with someone else where you are subject to that level of mental chatter, internal chatter, is very different than the experience of interacting with someone where you are both truly engaged in conversation. At least it is for me. And...

Harry: 14:01

i'm sorry, I interrupted. Keep going.

Jorge: 14:03

No, go ahead.

Harry: 14:05

I just got all excited about it because I made the conne... I was struggling to better understand it, and then you put it into focus like that. And, that was a moment where I wasn't thinking about what I was gonna say. I was present to listening and participating in the conversation with you and I got so excited, I just blurted something out and interrupted you. And thank you for being gracious. And it's like there's this place where you're just being, and in that state of being, in being present with somebody, it doesn't require figuring out how you're gonna answer the question that they're asking. It doesn't require that you about what question you're gonna ask them next. It requires that you're present and fully present. And I think a lot of people, because I was trying to apply this to myself, like if somebody asks me a tough question, I don't wanna appear stupid. And so I want to respond quickly and cogently and so I feel like I need to do it... if I don't take the time to think through what my response is gonna be while they're still talking, I might miss that opportunity when they're done talking. And I'm getting ahead of myself and actually I'm not listening to what they're saying at the end. It's like one of those tests where the last instruction is to not do all the work that you're about to do when you miss reading the instruction. I'm gonna stop there'cause I'm just starting to ramble. But I got excited about, yes, this is something that we can apply in a very specific way to human interaction.

Jorge: 16:00

I think it's one way, right? Just getting traction with anything, there comes a point where you're going to have to deal with other people. And at one level, like yes, your relationships with other people, it is possible it is very common, I would argue to overthink and to overthink to your detriment, both of your detriments. That's one. Another is, like I said, I've struggled for much of my life with overthinking things, and one of the things that I'm working on is trying to be more of the kind of person... there's a kind of person that you see them and you're like, this person just knows what to do. They're just naturally, they know how to respond in the moment. They just know what the right thing to do is, and it seems to come so natural to them. And again, it might be the OODA loop thing again, that we talked about last time, where if you've just had a lot of experience, you've internalized the heuristics that make it possible for you to respond appropriately based on the conditions as they evolve sometimes very quickly. And it's something that I aspire to is, when I'm in any kind of work situation, to be able to be present and engaged with the situation to a degree where my mental chatter is put on the back burner or not even there somehow. Like, I'm engaged at a different level. I'm not like overly-processing things, intellectualizing what I'm hearing, thinking conceptually about what the thing is that needs doing and actually doing it and being in it. I think it's a different quality of engagement and one that I aspire to do. And I think that when I look back on my life and career, many times when I've failed to gain traction, it's been because I've overthought things and I've kinda gotten in my way. So, it's just something that I find helpful to think about, not thinking.

Harry: 18:28

This reminds me of a really funny story. It was an expensive story, but it was a funny story. This was back in year 2000, late 2000, 2001, right? It was the dot com boom, right before it went bust, and I was developing this, what I thought at the time, and I think other people thought, was very innovative approach to online interaction. A company called Public Mind that I created, founded, funded. And I was doing the product design work and I had people working with me and I had opportunities to get venture funding. And I had shared what I was working on with Tim O'Reilly and he introduced me to Esther Dyson. And Esther Dyson, for those of you who don't know, is just an absolutely wondrous, brilliant technologist who is also an investor. And I reached out to Esther and she said,"Hey, I don't have time to meet you on this particular trip, but I need a ride from San Francisco Airport, SFO, to to Palo Alto, where I'm having dinner with somebody. Would you mind picking me up? And we can talk on the way and you can tell me what you're working on." And so, I was like,"Oh, that's so cool." So, I went to SFO, I was there on time. I picked her up, she got in the car, we started talking and it started out as small talk where she talked to me a little bit about growing up with her father Freeman Dyson. And I said,"Oh yeah, my dad was a theoretical plasma physicist too." And we just kept talking and she would ask me questions and I would answer them and I would ask her questions. And, it was just this engaged conversation where the whole time I was trying to figure out when I was gonna ask her if there was a way she would invest in the company, but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it. And I think what happened in that conversation is I really just wasn't very present to myself or to what was really going on. Because we got to Palo Alto and I dropped her off at the restaurant and she said it was nice meeting you, and the door closed and I was like,"I think I forgot to ask her for the money." I forgot to tell her what I was really working on. Like I missed the whole thing. And I haven't thought of that experience in quite some time, but it was this brief interstitial moment of probably thirty minutes in a car together with somebody where I was more, I think, concerned about the impression I was making and trying to develop a sense of common bond rather than being clear and true to myself about why I was there, why she was there, what we were trying to accomplish. And the moment passed. And I've never forgotten that moment because now I realize that it's these interstitial moments that are often the moment themselves. It's like there isn't gonna be a perfect moment. There isn't gonna be a meeting at an office. There isn't gonna be a sit down over dinner. It's gonna be in a walk from here to there, or a drive from here to there. And being really present to that requires a whole different level of being. And I don't know if that story makes any sense at all to you, but it came back to me as you were talking with such clarity.

Jorge: 22:19

I think it's an excellent story because one might make the mistake of thinking that what we're talking about here is somehow like just going with the flow and becoming so immersed in the situation that you just go with it. It sounds to me like maybe yes, maybe you were trying to impress Esther Dyson, but maybe you were just like fascinated by the conversation and the parallels that you found in having your dads being in the same discipline or what have you. So, it might be that you were just like having a such a great conversation that you forgot. But that's not the point. The point is, you still have an objective. Like, if you're playing tennis, like if you're gonna play tennis competitively at your best, and again, I'm not a big tennis player, but I've played enough to know that if you're trying to win, that's a very different way of being on the tennis court than if you're just there to have a good time, right? You have an objective. You wanna get the money, you want to win the game, and the question is, how can you be present enough to keep the goal in mind without it consuming you by making you overthink things. I think that's the key here. It's like there has to be a way. And for me, it's something that I have to practice on an ongoing basis is, how do I keep the goal present and working toward the goal without it consuming the brain cycles.

Harry: 24:02

Yeah. Yeah, this is a rich space, because I definitely forgot what game I was playing. And it is a kind of game, when you're there with a potential investor and you've got a good introduction and you're working on something very innovative and potentially very lucrative. I think had I understood that there was a goal that I really... had I been on my game that when the car door shut, a very different outcome would've resulted from that.

Jorge: 24:35

I think that Gallwey would say that this is something that one needs to train. And I would agree with that. There might be some people for whom it comes more naturally than others. It doesn't for me. And it's something that I've definitely have had to work on. And that's why I wanted to bring it to your attention, because I think that if someone wants to gain traction, this is a dimension that they need to consider: that it is possible to be so focused and so obsessed about the thing that you overthink it. And giving yourself the means to get out of your own way is also an important part of it.

Harry: 25:15

You know, training, or maybe another way of thinking about it is simulating, or simulation. Like, I had no idea that I was engaged in an activity that would've dramatically benefited from simulation or training. And I think maybe asking the question, I think back to one of the conversations that we had very early about something being unprecedented. If you're stepping into an environment where you're looking to achieve an outcome and you don't have any real experience there, that might be an opportunity to ask yourself,"Is there some way I can better train for this? Or is there some way I can simulate this environment and get more comfortable than I might otherwise be, such that it doesn't unfold in a completely haphazard way?" So I really like where you took that and pointed to the training idea, because that really brings it home for me and makes it something that I can do differently to get more traction.

Jorge: 26:26

You have so many great recommendations from me, I was glad to bring one that you hadn't seen before.

Harry: 26:32

I'm definitely gonna read that book and I'm really looking forward to it.

Jorge: 26:36

It's worthwhile. I think you'll appreciate it.

Narrator: 26:40

Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes with Harry Max and Jorge Arango. Check out the show notes at tractionheroes.com and if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating in Apple's podcasts app. Thanks.